


Choices

by Spacefille



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Dubious Consent, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, Red Romance, Sexual Coercion, Violence, dub-con drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-27 21:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacefille/pseuds/Spacefille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eridan finds out Karkat’s blood color. Karkat lashes out in self-defense, which lands the mutant in the brig of Eridan’s hive. Now Eridan has a dilemma on his hands, does he cull him or risk letting him go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: There may be another word for “prison on a ship”, but I don’t know it, so I used brig.

.

It starts out harmless enough. You have him over to discuss the particulars of your failed moirallegiance, instead of going over to his dingy little hive for a change. He’s nervous when he arrives and the more you talk the angrier he seems to get. He starts calling you all sorts of inconceivable names for some reason you don’t even know.

You don’t mean to get violent, you really don’t, but his words are just a little too harsh and you lash out. You back hand him.

You’re apologizing before he even straightens again. “Holy shit Kar, I didn’t mean to do that, are you okay-“ you stop talking as he straightens and you see the bright flash of fear in his eyes to go with the bright flash of something else on his face. A hand is covering his cut lip but not before you see the color of his blood.

You stop cold.

That color… he’s not a low blood.

He’s not even on the fucking hemospectrum.

“What… whateryou…” you start to babble and he reacts. His sickles are out and in his hands before you can reach for your Crosshairs.

You’re a hunter and you have a feeling you’ve killed a hell of a lot more trolls than he ever has, if he ever has. You have your Crosshairs trained on his chest before he can move and actually use those weapons. 

“Drop them,” you snarl. He doesn’t know your weapon takes a second or two to charge - he doesn’t need to know that. The fact that it looks like and is a gun should be enough.

Sure enough he draws a deep breath, and then another. You watch as his fists tighten and eyes well with angry tears before he loosens his grip. Both weapons fall to the floor with a clatter.

“Eridan…” he says, holding his hands up slowly. His voice is low and pleading. “Eridan don’t do this…”

Your head is spinning. You don’t know what to think. This is your friend, or was, a mutant freak that ought to be culled. The friend part is preventing you from pulling the trigger and blowing a large hole right through his chest. You do know you need to neutralize the threat, and he is a threat in his current state. “Move,” you order roughly.

He steps back. Again… and then again. You get him out in the open and away from anything he can use as a weapon against you.

“Strip,” you say. You don’t want any nasty surprises.

His face absolutely crumples. He’s never been able to keep emotion off of his face, and right now is no exception. He gives you this twisted look of complete despair before he complies. You brace, eyes trained on him as he grips the hem of his shirt and peels it over his head. When he has it in his hands you make a motion and he tosses it to the side.

His hands visibly shake as he goes for his pants. The feeling that hits you as he finishes undressing, only to stand in front of you bare and shivering and glaring at you like a feral trapped animal, surprises you.

It’s pity. You’ve never really felt it before for any troll, even Feferi who you were just trying to get to red from pale with and lost her in both. There is a little bit of irony in the fact that your messed up situation with Feferi is why he is here in the first place.

You make sure not to let any of that show on your face, though you’re acutely aware that this entire situation can’t end happily. So far you’ve hit him, he pulled a weapon on you, and now yours is trained on his chest. You drop the muzzle of your weapon even for a second and he is going to attack you. That’s just the way things work.

You need to calm him down, make sure he knows you’re not a threat or he’ll do something like kill you in your sleep. You have absolutely no idea how to calm down a troll who thinks you’re going to cull him for an admittedly cullable offense. You’re not stupid enough to think talking your way out of this will work. Your eyes narrow.

“Turn around. Hands on your head,” you say. You’ve seen Vriska do this often enough, her favorite thing is making other trolls walk the plank.

He does it slowly. You can see how his shoulder muscles bunch. “Walk towards the door.”

“Eridan…” he begins.

“NOW,” you hiss, butting the tip of the weapon between his shoulder blades.

He goes completely tense and does as you ask.

You march him with barked directions on which way to go through your hive. You can tell he’s confused, and then disorientated, you’re fairly sure he thought you were going to take him to the top of your hive and make him jump off the side of your ship. He’d have a long swim to get to the mainland from here, and being a landdweller you highly doubt he’d make it.

No, you’re going for the brig.

Your hive is made out of the wrecked remains of what was once a large pirate ship, and the brig is where you keep some of your spoils from your flarping adventures. It may contain piles of some of your gaudier treasures, gold coins and the like, but shackles still line one of the walls. The giant set of keys for the shackles are on a rusted hook by the door. You grab that with one of your hands while shoving your prisoner towards the wall with the blunt end of your gun with the other. His breath hitches.

“Oh for fucks sake Eridan, just cull me already,” he snaps as you reach the wall.

“Get that shackle down there,” you say, making a motion with your gun at one of the shackles by his feet. They’re the ones on a chain, you want him to be able to move around a bit.

He turns his head to glare at you for the first time since this entire thing began. The blood that leaked down from his lips has dried somewhat, becoming duller, almost rust colored. _Almost normal._

Except he isn't.

You glower. “Now, you disgusting mutant freak,” you snarl out, and even you believe the sincerity in your tone.

He sighs and leans over to pick up the shackle.

“Good, get it on your foot.” Yeah it’s cruel to make him chain himself up, but if you did it, he’d go for your throat.

He shoots you another glare and reluctantly clips it on.

“And the other,” you say.

He does up his other foot. You can see his defiance bleeding away into nervousness again. It gets worse when you go over to the side wall and take down a short chain attached to two cuffs for his wrists.

“Eridan, come on,” he begins again as you approach.

You ignore him. You swing your weapon over your shoulder because you need both hands for this. He can’t get away, but you expect a struggle. Sure enough the moment you make to grab a wrist he lashes out, grabs your own wrist with one hand and lands a punch with the other.

He’s stronger than you expect. He nearly gets you into a headlock and even manages to bite you as he struggles for your weapon. You end up having to punch him in the face to get yourself free again and backhand him hard enough he slams up against the wall. He snarls at you and you snarl back, then lunge and tackle him.

You have to pin him to the ground before you’re able to get even one of his wrists into the cuff, and it’s another all out war before you’re able to get the other wrist anywhere near the second cuff.

“Why are you doing this?!” he screams at you. “Why won’t you just fucking cull me? Fuck you! FUCK YOU, ERIDAN, EITHER CULL ME OR LET ME GO!”

You finish cuffing him. You continue to sit on his backside, panting heavily. You’re bleeding from a bite on your arm, and it pisses you off, but not enough to punish him for it. “I’m not stupid Kar. If I free you you’ll just attack me. No way I’m lettin’ you go until you calm down and I’ve done some thinkin’, so it’d be better if you just stopped resistin’.”

He goes limp at your words. He still glares at you angrily from his vantage point on the floor as you get up from him. His glare follows you as you go to the door of the brig and turn back to study him.

At least he’s not going anywhere while trussed up like that.

Even so you’re beginning to think this is a bad idea. There might not be any way to fix this. You sigh and shake your head before turning to leave the room.

.


	2. Chapter 2

.

You have a troll chained up in the bowls of your ship. He isn’t just any troll either, he’s a friend. Or was.

You stare at yourself in the mirror for what seems to be forever, trying to figure out how to make this one work. Your reflection doesn’t seem to hold any answers either.

After a while you give up and go about dressing the bite on your arm. You have to change your shirt for that, his teeth went right through the fabric. Brief anger wells up inside of you, to counter balance the feeling of guilt. You did just strip him and chain him up, of course he’s going to fight back.

Doesn’t mean you have to like it any.

You go back to the sitting block where the entire confrontation happened in the first place. You pick up his sweater, fingers tracing the outline of his grey symbol. You always thought he was just ashamed of being a brown or rust blood.

You fold the sweater neatly, and do the same with his pants, gather up his shoes and then stand there for a moment trying to figure out what to do with them. You suppose you could give them back since they’re not hiding any weapons or anything, but giving him back his clothes would mean unchaining him and like hell you’re doing that any time soon.

You end up just tucking his clothes away in your respite block, along with his sickles.

.

You return several hours later, after dinner. You have a roll in one hand and a bowl of water and a cloth in the other. You want to clean him up a bit and you just hope he feels like cooperating.

You can see he’s curled into a ball you as you reenter the brig. As you watch he raises his head and glares at you as you approach.

You sit down just outside of his reach. You put the roll down where he can reach it and settle back again. You wait and watch him like he’s a caged animal. Which he kind of is.

Until he speaks at least.

He sits up and sighs heavily. “Okay, look,” he says. “Obviously you don’t want to cull me, so can we just cut the crap?” he asks. “Just… how about you let me go, I go back to my hive, and we just don’t mention this ever again.”

You stare at him. “How many people know about your blood, Kar?” you ask.

His face goes from open and pleading to closed off and defensive. After a moment he looks away from you. “No one,” he admits.

You feel another swell of pity, one you try your best to force back so you can question him properly. “And if anyone did find out about it, what would you do?”

He tenses.

“Kar, tell me,” you insist. This is very important.

He flinches. When he speaks again it seems each word is dragged out from between clenched teeth. “I don’t know.”

You snort. “I know what you’d do, you’d try to kill them. You pulled a weapon on me the moment I saw, Kar, excuse me if I don’t think that’s a very positive reason for lettin’ you go.” 

His lips pull up into a snarl. “You’re practically fucking married to the hemospectrum, Eridan!” he snaps. “How many trolls have you killed? And don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been planning with Vriska, what the fuck is that all about? You’re just planning on wiping out, oh, almost every single living troll on the face of Alternia you homicidal douche! Excuse me if I don’t think my chances of survival are very high if you…”

That hurts, your plans were never to hurt any of your friends, you'd figure out a way to make sure none og them got hurt. He couldn't actually think you'd kill him could he?

The pity you felt moments ago returns full force. You don’t have very good self control when it comes to anything but… well, hunting really. You cut him off by grabbing him by the neck and kissing him soundly on the lips.

He squeaks and amazingly does not try to bite your lip off, not that he’d have much of a chance. You jerk away very quickly and get the hell back out of his range of attack.

He’s glaring at you now, but it’s a wary suspicious glare, not angry and defensive. After a moment he picks up the roll, bites into it and begins to chew as he sits back against the wall.

You, on the other hand, are blushing. You shift and clear your throat and force your lips into a semi-snarl, but the look on his face tells you he’s onto you.

He doesn’t say anything as he finishes eating the roll. He sits absolutely still as you take the cloth, wring it out, and carefully reach for him. You’re tense and prepared for him to try to attack you at any moment.

He doesn’t. Your earfins twitch as you begin to run the cloth over his bare skin, wiping it clear of blood and dirt from the floor, and he remains relaxed and absolutely still.

This is the closest you’ve ever been to another troll, and it’s faintly horrifying that it’s with a troll you have chained up naked in your hive.

When you put the cloth down and start to touch his hair he sighs. “Eridan.”

“Shh,” you say, patting down his wild locks gently. The other troll obviously doesn’t use any product in his hair, it’s an utter disaster. You frown and smooth a clump of it down, only to have it pop back up again and for some reason that really irritates you. You smooth it down again.

“Eridan,” he says, and his voice has changed slightly. It’s calm now, soothing. “Let me go and I promise I won’t hurt you.”

You jerk your hand away quickly, almost as if you’ve been burnt. You give him a wounded look. “I don’t believe you,” you say, and you know you’re pouting a bit.

He rolls his eyes then reaches out and grabs the front of your shirt with his still bound hands before you can react. Instead of hitting you, however, he mashes his lips to yours and kisses you, long and hard.

You’re panting once you manage to squirm away. You scramble to your feet and grab the bowl of water and escape from the room as fast as you can.

.

You have some serious soul searching to do and it keeps you up most of the day. Outside of the fact that he just tried to manipulate his way free – to be expected, really, he _did_ kiss you back.

But it’s not enough and you’re fairly sure it’s just that – manipulation. Everything you think returns you to the same conclusion. You know his secret, he’s a danger to you, you’re both trolls, you’ve flarped enough to know how this works, even if he is a friend. You need to eliminate him.

You also pity him, hard. Sure you’re disgusted, but all gutterbloods disgust you, everyone who isn’t a seadweller. In your mind he’s still on the same level of loathful awfulness as he was before… okay maybe a little bit lower. But he’s also your friend and you don’t want to hurt him; it’s kind of hard to want to hurt someone when you’d much rather do things like touch them intimately and fix their horribly unruly hair.   

You turn conversation after conversation over in your mind, trying to think of any way to say that you’re not a threat to him and make it convincing.

Even as you think it, you know it’s probably hopeless.  You slump in front of your husktop and put your head in your hands.

You just wish you hadn’t touched him in the first place and this would have never happened.

.

You barely get any sleep that day, for the whole couple of hours you even try. You can’t help but to think he’s down below, with nothing to sleep with at all except for a cold hard floor.

He’s already cranky at the best of times, you’re fairly sure he’s going to be absolutely impossible now.

You can see the dark circles under your eyes as you carefully do your hair that evening. You sigh and go about making food, preparing a plate for him as well.

You can see he’s back to being curled up into a ball you walk into the brig. You sniff and wrinkle your nose, noticing it smells decidedly worse than it did the day before. It’s then that you notice a cup from your treasure collection, which he has placed as far away from himself as he can manage in his chains and you get it.

You feel guilty again. You hadn’t even thought about stuff like that, and you’re terrible. You never expected to ever have a prisoner for any length or amount of time. It’s much easier to just cull landdwelling trolls and hand the remains over to Vriska or toss them into the sea.

He uncurls as you approach. “How are you doin’?” you greet him.

“How do you fucking think I’m doing?” he snaps back, proving your earlier thoughts about his crankiness.

“I was just askin’,” you reply, a little bit affronted. You kneel and push the plate of food within his reach.

He sighs loudly. “I’m tired, cold, hungry, uncomfortable, I’m chained to a fucking wall and I want to go back to my hive,” he says. “How long do you plan to keep me here?”

“I don’t know,” you reply. He gives you an incredulous look, then picks up the plate wordlessly.

“Look, Eridan,” he says as he eats. “You’re going to have to make a fucking choice here. Either you cull me,” he swallows. “Or you let me go. You can’t have both. You’re going to have to trust me that I’m not going to kill you if I get a chance.”

You eye him. “I don’t want to die,” you point out.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to either,” he returns with a snarl, then seems to realize the way he said that. He swallows again and leans his head back against the wall. “… Fuck.”

You’re armed of course, and you finger the shoulder strap of your gun. He raises his head from the wall again and gives you this really weary look. “Alright, fine,” he says. He puts down the plate. “Just do it already, will you? Get it over with.”

“Finish eating,” is all you say.

He eyes you for a few moments more. His face finally gets this really sad expression on it, and you’re fairly sure you see tears forming in his eyes. He dunks his head quickly and picks up his plate. After a moment of staring at it he resumes eating. He doesn’t say anything else.

You take the cup to empty it when you go.

. 


	3. Chapter 3

.

You take him down a blanket the next morning before you crawl into your recuperacoon for what little sleep you can still get. He’s shoved himself into a corner now, arms curled around his legs. You can see he’s shivering and you feel another giant well of pity.

You walk over to him and stand over him in order to wrap it around his shoulders. He stops shivering long enough to give you a very tired look. A hand comes out to grasp the fabric close around him. “… thanks,” he says.

You frown and crouch down in front of him. “Kar,” you say, reaching out and adjusting the blanket around his shoulders. “How do I fix this? I tried to think of a solution, and I can’t think of anythin’.” 

He sighs, and he sounds really tired. “I told you already. You either trust me, or you cull me.”

You frown at him. “That’s not good enough,” you say.

“It’s going to have to be,” he replies grimly. His jaw is set.

You give him a very sad look and get to your feet again. His eyes meet yours. You’re not sure what he’s thinking, but he now he looks sad as well. After a moment he hunches his shoulders and burrows deeper in his blanket.

You lean down again and kiss him on the top of one of his small rounded horns. He shuts his eyes.

You straighten and quietly leave the brig.

Once outside you slump against the wall, putting your face in your hands. 

Fuck. What the hell are you doing?

.

A solution occurs to you the next evening, but it’s more of a temporary fix, because you’re tired of him fouling up your brig, and if you’re going to keep him chained up you’re going to move him to a bathroom, or ablution trap or whatever the word is that lowbloods use to describe their bathrooms.

You mix some sopor with some medical paste you have left over from your last misadventure. It was nearly a sweep ago and you broke your leg in an ill-timed fall. You had to set it yourself, and you were in so much pain Fef made a supply run to get you the medicine. It took the pain away but left you as weak as a baby purrbeast for a day and a half. Thankfully you had your lusus to protect you and your hive, because even after the pain faded you were vulnerable for weeks as your leg finished healing.

You don’t use much of either the slime or the drug, you don’t want him to be catatonic, just calm and unable to fight. You return to the brig with his clothes under one arm, and the sopor mix in a bowl in the other.

He recognizes the clothes and gives you a suspicious look as you approach. You crouch down and slide the sopor mixture towards him. “Eat that,” you say.

He stares at it for a moment, and then at you. “You have GOT to be kidding me,” he says.

You hold out his pants so he can see them. “Do you want to get dressed again anytime soon? Or bathe or use the load gapper?”

“So you’re just going to drug me?” he looks incredulous. “And then, what, CARRY me all over your hive?”

You don’t say anything, but you do fold your arms across your chest.

“Do you have any idea what this shit does to your think pan?”

You snort. “Once won’t hurt you,” you say.

He looks repulsed. “Yeah, I’m sure Gamzee said that his first time too,” he grumbles. He draws a deep breath, then another, then finally he picks up the bowl and sniffs at it. “Fuck, Eridan, it doesn’t even smell right,” he looks back up at you and now you can see a tiny hint of fear in his eyes.

“It won’t hurt you,” you repeat. “Why would I keep you alive just to poison you, that’s stupid. It’ll just make you weak is all. And it’ll fade in a day.” 

He worries his lip between his teeth for a long moment, then draws in a couple more deep breaths before he speaks again. “I trust you,” he says, pinning you with a meaningful glare before tilting his head back and swallowing it all in one go.

He chokes, the bowl clattering to the ground. You go to him without even thinking about it, placing an arm around his chest and patting him on back with the other as he gasps and coughs. “Burns,” he manages to gasp out as he convulses. He’s wracked with another coughing fit. Instinct kicks back in while he’s still coughing and you shift to make sure you’re in a lock with his arms trapped along his sides so he can’t do anything except try to bite you again. 

After a couple more rounds of coughing he relaxes. Instead of fighting you off he sort of slumps against you. From memory you know it’ll take a couple of minutes for the medicine to kick in. You relax your grip anyway, reaching up to stroke his hair back from his forehead. He tilts his head to look at you, his cheeks flushed from coughing, and you can see that he already looks a little dazed.

You lean down and give him a quick peck on the lips, and taste the bitterness of the mixture you just made him eat. The corner of his mouth curves up slightly into a half smile at the expression on your face. “Fuck you,” he says, but there is no heat behind the words. 

“Later,” you return distractedly, glancing about the room. You wonder if you should get him water or something, even though you know that that’d mean letting him go. He shivers in your arms and you look back down at him. His cheeks flush darker if that is at all possible and then his eyes widen.

“Oh fuck no,” he says with a fervor that startles you. When his eyes meet yours again you can see fear is in them again, along with not a little bit of anger. “Eridan, if you do _anything_ to me when I’m like this, everything is off. I swear I’ll find a way to rip your fucking bulge off and feed it to you before I kill you…” he coughs again, but it’s weaker this time, and it’s like you can feel the strength drain out of him.

For some reason that hurts more than anything, and that takes you by surprise. Matesprits are supposed to be mutually agreed upon, even you know that, and how can he agree to anything if he can’t even think straight? “What do you take me for?” you say and you sound hurt… in fact your voice is suspiciously close to a whine.

His head rolls back again and he gives you a long scrutinizing look. After a moment he seems to decide on something and he gives you a small smile. “Someone who is not completely out of his thinkpan,” he says. “Which is saying something, seeing as you’re keeping another troll prisoner and chained up in your hive.”

“I’ve never had to keep anyone prisoner before,” you reply, still faintly hurt. It’s not like you make a practice of this. 

His smile widens. “So I’m your first?” There is almost a purring lit to his voice and the way he said that...

You blink. “Holy fuck Kar, are you coming onto me?” you exclaim. You shake your head slightly. “You just said if I…”

The smile on his face drops. “I know what I said,” he says quietly. He reaches up and you let him press his hand to the side of your face. You worry briefly about his claws being that close to your eyes. It turns out you have nothing to concern yourself with, his hand is already shaking slightly with the effort. “I wish things could be different,” he says honestly. As you watch his eyes drift to half lidded, become less lucid and slide away from your face. The hand falls to hang loosely by his side. “My fault, s’my fault, I never should have come…”

You swallow and put him down gently before going for the keys.

.


	4. Chapter 4

.

You put him in the shower and turn on the tap, only to have that devolve into a screaming fit. Apparently what you consider warm is freezing to him. After a few tries you get it to a level that is almost uncomfortably too hot for you and barely acceptable for him.

He’s too weak to even stand, so he just kind of slumps there, sitting on the floor of the tub, head down and arms between his knees. “I don’t want this,” he says finally, miserably from where he sits, water dripping down from where his horns break the stream. “I don’t want you being nice to me, I want to go back to my hive,” his voice breaks and you’re fairly sure he’s crying now. “I want to go home so you can go back to being a whiny bulgemunch on trollian and I can go back at yelling at you for not understanding the first thing about how relationships work. I miss all my friends and my lusus and I just want to go hooooommmeee…” he breaks down, sobbing pitifully as he hunches over the rest of the way.

“You’re being hysterical,” you point out. You deliberately don’t point out he’s currently crying for his lusus like a wriggler.

“Shut up! You drugged me!” he snarls back through his tears and he doesn’t raise his head. 

You sigh and step into the water as well. It doesn’t matter if your clothes get wet, they’re made from fabric that dries quickly. Except for your scarf, and that you toss out of the bathtub, and after a moment your cape follows because it’ll just get in the way. You slide down in behind him and reach out, drawing him back against you and he doesn’t resist. He’s really fucking small. You wonder if that has to do with his mutation as well, some cosmic force deciding to put him at a double disadvantage. Grimly you pick up the soap and start to wash him.

You even wash his hair, all of it, and he lets you with minimal resistance, though you’re fairly sure he couldn’t fight back right now, even if he tried.

You have to support him to get him out of the tub, and dry him yourself. Afterwards you bundle him up in several warm towels and take him back to your living block and place him on the couch.

He slumps over onto his side.

.

You know he likes movies about quadrants so you pop one in and position him around so he can see the screen. He just gives you this kind of glazed glassy look. “Did you seriously just put on a romance movie?” he asks, sounding more lucid than he did in the bath.

“What’s wrong with romance movies? I thought you liked ‘em,” you reply.

He laughs out loud at that, and keeps on laughing, the sound is sickly and weak but he doesn’t stop. You’re beginning to feel irritated, but remind yourself that he’s not himself right now. “Oh man, oh man, I’m your – haha – prisoner and you’re making me watch movies with you, it’s so romantic and so fucking you Eridan.”

“Shut up!” you snap and he mercifully falls silent.

“Sorry,” he mumbles after a moment. He curls up into a small ball, and you’re quickly starting to recognize that as a defensive gesture.

You unclench your fists and sigh, then go over and touching his shoulder gently. “It’s okay,” you say. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he nods, but doesn’t say anything else. 

.

Several hours later you’re fairly sure he’s faded in and out of sleep several times, and you’re on your third movie. You yawn and check the time and make to get up, only to have him grab your arm. His grip is weak, but he clenches with trembling fingers and holds onto you.

“Kar, what?” you ask.

His eyes are hazy as if he has a fever as he drags himself over to you. You don’t push him off, even as he crouches above you. “Pail me,” he says and you stare up at him.

“What? No, Kar…” you raise your hands and try to push him away, but he persists, pushing back down with all his weight.

“Pail me, you have to,” he says.

“Not until we get this worked out!” you say, succeeding in pushing him off of you.

He sits back on his haunches, and looks hurt. Two pinpoints of unnatural flush to his cheeks tell you he’s still as high as can be and he looks pretty sick right now too. You hope you didn’t overdose him, though you’re not sure how that’d be possible. It’s not like you gave him a lot.

“You don’t understand,” he says. “If you pail me you won’t have to cull me,” he continues. “We could be matesprits. You want me don’t you? I’ve seen it, you do.”

You stare at him. “Kar…” you begin. “That’s not how I feel…” okay, so it _is_ how you feel about him, but it’s a very new development in your life and not something you even want to be discussing with him while he’s like this.

He lowers his chin. “I’d be good, I promise. I could serve you, just like low bloods do in the empire,” he blinks and you’re horrified to see tears welling in his eyes. “Your very own low blood s-slave. You can show your high blood friends what a good little servant you have. K-keeps me alive, keeps you happy…”

You feel a little sick. “Stop,” you say. “Stop it.” Fuck, while you were trying to think of ways to fix this by reassuring him you don’t intend to harm him and _these_ where the thoughts that were going through his head? He’s crying now too, tears streaming down his face.

You try to push yourself back even further as he leans towards you. Instead of keeping his distance he continues to walk forwards on his hands and knees until he is hovering above you again. “Just take me Eridan,” he pleads. “You can still get another matesprit…”

“NO,” you bodily pick him up and throw him off of you. He lands on the floor in a winded heap.

He’s cringing now, which isn’t helped by the fact that you are glowering down at him. “I would _never_ cheat on a matesprit,” you snarl. He might think you’re fucking awful at relationships, but that’s something you know for sure. Once you fill your quadrants, you won’t have _need_ for anyone else, you’ll be a complete troll. That’s how it works.

Unfortunately snarling at him just made him cower more.

You draw a couple deep breaths in order to calm down. “Stop,” you say in a much quieter voice. You’re proud of how calm you sound. You crouch down, and press a hand to his shoulder, reaching out to wipe the tears from his face with your other hand. “I’m not going to cull you because your blood is wrong, or pail you outside a quadrant. I don’t want you to be my slave or anything. You have to believe me, I don’t want you like that.” you draw a deep breath. “You’re my _friend_ , that doesn’t change because you’re even less than a low blood. You’re still you,” you smooth his wild bangs back from his face. “You’ve gotta believe me Kar, I’m not a threat to you. Please believe me,” you’re having the conversation you’ve had in your head countless times in the last couple nights.

For some reason your words make him go from crying silently to bursting into tears.

You have no idea what to do. “Stop that!” you exclaim. His tears just make you feel really guilty for drugging him in the first place. If only you had known another way to get him out of his chains without getting instantly attacked…

“Okay, stop, stop,” you try to be soothing, petting his hair more. After a few moments of that not working you pick him up and cradle him in your arms, and walk back to the couch. You lay down on it, then place him across your chest, holding him as he cries himself out.

.

When you wake up again you realize two things… one you feel terrible from having slept without sopor and two… Karkat is gone.

Your heart freezes in your chest. Fuck! Even if you were only out for a few hours there’s a good chance the drugs would have worn off. Damn you’re stupid. Stupid! He’d have escaped by now for sure. Or he could be getting ready to attack you…

Growling, you get to your feet and reach for your gun, fully prepared to go find him and kill him if you have to. You swing up and off the couch and land on your feet, Crosshairs equipped.

You turn towards the door of the room and stop cold.

He’s standing there, completely dressed, but instead of holding his weapons, he’s holding a tray. You stare at him and he stares back, before he makes a distressed sound in the back of his throat.

“Kar?” you ask.

He drops the tray and runs.

You lower your weapon slowly and walk towards the tray. You can see from the mess it made on the floor that it just contained a couple slices of grubloaf and juice. Your eyes widen. Not only did he not leave, or try to hurt you while you were vulnerable, but he even got you food?

“KAR!” You call out, dodging around the tray and out of the room. “Karkat! Come back, I’m not going to hurt you… shit,” you swear under your breath. After running up and down a couple halls you stop and decide to do something that comes very hard to you.

You put down your weapon. Not before disabling it of course… you don’t want him to get his hands on it and use it, but you also don’t want to seem threatening. You straighten and put your hands up in a gesture of surrender as you keep on walking through your corridors. “Kar, I’m unarmed, come on,” you stick your head into a room and when you don’t see him anywhere you continue on. “Kar, seriously…”

You round another corner and stop cold.

He’s standing there with both of his sickles in his hands and a determined look on his face.

Shit.

.


	5. Chapter 5

.

“Kar,” you try again, hands out in front of you. You’re fairly sure you can at least dodge in a close range fight and you still have a lot more experience than he does, but right now you’re _really_ regretting putting down your gun. “I’m not armed,” you add unnecessarily.

He looks you over and the determined expression on his face turns to one that is more surprised than anything. His relaxes his stance just a bit and walks slowly towards you. You back up at the same time, unwilling to let him within swiping distance. “Put them down, Kar,” you say roughly. “Please.”

His eyes narrow slightly and his teeth clench. “Last time I put these down around you I spent two nights chained to a wall and a third drugged out of my fucking pan,” he replies. “What makes you think I’m in any rush to put them down again?”

You swallow and glare. “I told you I’m not gonna hurt you,” you reply. “I thought we were going to have to trust each other.”

 “YOU JUST PULLED A GUN ON ME!” he shouts and you flinch.

“I just woke up!” you snap back, slightly offended now. “I had no idea what you were going to do, excuse me if I have a healthy survival instinct!”

He glares at you. “And the fact that I left you alive while you were sleeping didn’t mean anything to you at all?!”

You snort and straighten the collar of your shirt. You left your scarf and cape in the bathroom. “I dare you to think clearly after spending the night sleepin’ on a couch. In fact I don’t think you’re thinkin’ very clearly right now.”

He looks surprised for a moment, then angry, a low growl issuing from his throat and oh fuck you can see his eyes are starting to darken into a deeper orange. “Fuck you, Eridan,” he snarls. “I’m thinking perfectly fine. You were right,” he tightens his grip on his sickles. “There’s no way to fix this. I think it’ll have to be either you or me.”

Your heart freezes in your chest. _Fuck._ “Kar, no…”

You have no time to say anything else, because he rushes you.

You dodge, then kick out, hitting one of his forearms. He brings his other arm around and that sickle catches on your shirt. You feel a sharp twinge of pain as the very tip slices through the shirt and catches your skin but you ignore it, scrambling away. You get a very quick look at him and he’s lost one of his sickles, but now he’s coming after you with the other. You dodge again, this time past him and grab the dropped weapon.

Now you’re both armed, and you have a distinct advantage. He’s working on rage, sparing nothing in any of his attacks, but you have experience on your side. Luckily his attacks are also easy to dodge, almost laughably slow, and you wonder about that until you realize he’s still probably fighting off the effects of being drugged. 

You circle each other, both hunched over, waiting for the next attack. He finally lets out a low growl and rushes you again. You kick, this time catching him in the stomach, and another hit to his attacking arm and he loses that sickle as well. That doesn’t stop him, he lets out a cry and leaps for your face, claws extended in front of him. He manages to get one hand into your torn shirt, but he’s still smaller than you and you hear your shirt tear further as you knock him off you and to the ground.

He tries to get up again but you throw yourself on top of him, pinning his arms to his sides with your knees. He struggles, screams and fights until you press his sickle to his throat.

 It’s like he is a puppet with cut strings, all the fight goes out of him.

You’re panting with exertion and the thrill of the fight. You’re aware of several things at once, the feeling of blood dripping down your torso from the cut on your chest, how warm he feels under you, how he’s looking at you, anger and redness in his eyes fading to the same bone weary tiredness that you’ve seen before. You’re pissed, you’re bleeding, and you’re fully aware that a sharp jerk of your hand will end his life. Your hand actually trembles, knuckles white on the handle of his weapon.

He’s searching your eyes now, looking for something and you have no idea what. As you watch a single drop of purple blood hits his cheek and rolls off… it’s from your mouth, you must have caught your lip during the fight.

He blinks. He’s not even crying or tearing up, which is amazing seeing as he spent a lot of the last day doing that. Instead he just looks solemn.

You realize you feel like crying instead. “I don’t want to do this,” you say finally, plaintively, and there is an embarrassing waver to your voice. “Don’t make me do this.”

His eyes flutter closed and then open again. “Pretend I’m a troll you’ve never met,” he says.

“I don’t wanna,” you say. You clench your teeth. Fuck if you let him go you’re putting your life on the line as well. He’ll kill you, he’ll kill you once he has half a chance, you know that, you know…

You relax your grip. Slowly you raise your hand and bring the weapon with it, placing it aside. You shift down the length of his body and then roll over, gathering him up and taking him with you.

You wind up against the side of the hall, holding him in your lap. He lays limp in your arms, head on your shoulder.

You stay like that for what feels like a really long time, but is probably just a minute or two. Your heart slows down. He shifts, pressing his forehead against your neck. He doesn’t fight you off or try to push away, so you just keep on holding him.

After a while he lets out this small sigh and his hand comes up. He runs it along your arm, and then he sits up so that he can get a better look at your chest wound. You hiss as he touches the cut he made when he caught you with his weapon.

“It’s not too deep,” he says quietly.

And you’re glad for it. If he caused you serious injury, he would be dead, you wouldn’t have stopped, you know that. “This is the second shirt of mine you’ve ruined completely,” you complain, making light of the fact that he really did just cut you open.

He lets out a snort that sounds suspiciously like laughter, and burrows his face into your shoulder. He continues to make snorting sounds and yes, you realize that that is definitely laughter. “Stop laughin’ it’s not funny,” you pout. “For serious Kar, you nearly fuckin’ killed me.”

He stops and cranes his head back so that he can look at you. After a moment he sits up to lick the blood from your lips, almost apologetically. You almost protest because ew, gross and you’re not feeling very amorous right now, then decide this is better than near death and trying to kill each other. After a while he stops and shifts again so he’s pressed against you more, despite the cut, his chin resting on your shoulder as he curls up in your embrace.

From your vantage point you can see both sickles where they were dropped, and one of them has purple blood on its tip. It makes your heart pound a little bit faster again and you clench your teeth, pushing back the urge to fling him off and slit his throat. You tighten your grip just a little bit. No. No you’re not culling him. You want him in a quadrant, and you can only do that if he’s alive.

“Are we done fighting?” you ask finally.

He is silent for a moment, before he shifts in your arms to peer up at you again. “You didn’t just kill me when you had the chance,” he says. “After I attacked you. Yeah, I’d say we’re done.”

You let out a huge sigh of relief and hold him closer. “About time,” you grumble.

“You’re the one who chained me up in the first place,” he returns.

“And it was a fucking mistake okay?” you snap back. “You pulled a weapon on me, what else was I supposed to do?”

He’s silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he says very quietly, and it sounds like he means it.

For some reason that just makes you want to hold him close and never let him go.

.

He sews you up, which really hurts. You’re used to pain when it comes to injuries, and you’ve had to sew yourself up often enough. You sit on your load gapper and try your best to be quiet as he runs a needle and thread through your cut, binding the skin back together. You can’t help but to notice the curious looks he shoots your gills as he’s doing it. He’s never seen a shirtless seadweller before and it makes you puff up with pride.”You can touch them if you want,” you offer generously once he finishes with the sewing.

He flushes and gives you an embarrassed look. You just lift your arm and gesture at him imperiously to go ahead.

He’s gentle. Your gills are sensitive and somewhat easy to hurt or tear, but he’s careful as he runs his fingers along them. You flare them out a bit more, even though you’re not in water and it kinda hurts to breathe, but it shows off the brilliant layer of royal purple underneath.

He looks rapt. He gives them the over-focused attention he gives everything he does in his life, and you realize with another pang that you want this troll. Very badly. You also acutely remember what he told you while he was drugged. You’re not going to just pail him, but you do want him. You have absolutely no idea how to go about telling him, and he’s your relationship expert. If you say it, you’ll probably ruin everything. Again.

He finishes touching your gills and you snap them closed again. He still has a slight flush to his cheeks as he runs a warm cloth over your torso, cleaning it of the rest of the spilt blood. When he’s done he straightens and contemplates you for a second, then leans over and kisses your cheek. “There’s still some food left if you want some,” he says.

You sit there for a moment, utterly confused, then stand up to follow him out of the room. 

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	6. Chapter 6

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Things are touch and go. He doesn’t take off his sickles, you’ve gone back to wearing your gun over your shoulder - but only after holding out your hands and explaining that you don’t intend to use it and point out that he’s armed as well. He narrows his eyes at you and doesn’t say anything and thankfully doesn’t attack you either.

Instead he makes more food for you and uses your husktop while you eat, apparently catching up on everyone who wanted to know where he’s been for nearly four days.

You’re a bit afraid of what he’d say, but later when he’s gone off to use the bathroom you get a glimpse of his chat logs (when you’re fairly sure he left open for your benefit) all he’s said is he’s been visiting Eridan and he’ll be home soon.

Something catches in your throat at that. That means it’s all over. You don’t even know how to feel or what to feel about that… does that mean there will no longer be anything further between you? Of course it does, you’re not stupid. You can’t just fix this in a day and like hell is he going to want anything to do with you after this.

He comes back into the room in time to see the look on your face as you guiltily close the husktop. “Kar,” you begin, clearing your throat. You have a whole lot of things you want to say. Like apologize for what just happened between you both, as well as keeping him prisoner for days, maybe talk about your feelings a bit.

Instead he just walks over to you and puts his hand over your mouth and shakes his head.

You shut up.

“I’m going back to my hive,” he announces as he steps away from you.

“… okay,” you reply after a moment. There is silence and you shift nervously. He notices it.

“Oh for fucks sake, Eridan,” he says. He leans over you and presses a very soft kiss to your lips. Your eyes flutter closed and then back open again and you blink at him owlishly. He reaches up and touches your horn, then brings his hand down to cup a fin. The expression on his face turns into something a little bit more fond as he leans over and presses another kiss to your forehead. “Come visit me,” he says against your forehead.

You lick your lips, throat suddenly dry. If that isn’t a solicitation you don’t know what is. “Kar, you don’t have to…”

His hand tightens on your fin and you flinch and shut up. Those things are sensitive, and the last thing you want is for him to tear them.

“When?” you ask instead.

He stays still for a moment, then shrugs and lets you go. “In a couple days?” he replies. “Let me catch up on my sleep first… I haven’t been getting a lot of that lately,” he gives you a wry little smile.  

You nod dumbly. When he goes to leave the room you follow him. You figure out pretty damn fast he’s heading for the deck of your ship. 

You take him back silently; you have a smaller ship, basically an emergency boat you use between your hive and the mainland. You can swim so it’s only been used a handful of times to take your extremely few in number landdweller friends to your hive. You used it to bring him here in the first place.

You notice the slight tremble to his hand when you help him off of the boat and onto the dock. You don’t say anything but the relief on his face is easy to see. Again you feel guilty and you see what the last couple days would have been like from his point of view, trapped in a strange place and certain he’s going to die. No wonder he wanted you to pail him, that move would have almost certainly guaranteed him his life, if not his freedom. It’s extremely hard to kill quadrant-mates, you know because there’s been a couple times in the past where you were tempted with Vriska, but you couldn't because she’s your kismesis. Or was.

In that moment you can’t help but feel admiration for the small landdweller. He’s strong-willed and he fought hard for this freedom. That just ends up making you want him a little bit more.

.

His lusus has been waiting for him for days. The crab looks delighted to see him, scuttling out of a hole it has dug for its self in the sand, clacking its claws at Karkat. Your face softens as you watch him hug his lusus, before climbing onto his back to set off with him towards his hive.

You don’t want any harm to come to him. Yeah, you’re flushed for him, but… tendrils of concern enter your mind. He’s still a landdweller, not that that matters to you at this point, what with your feelings and all. But he’s also carrying a secret with him, and you don’t know how to fix blood. You might have a potential quadrant-mate, but for how long until someone else who isn’t you finds out and culls him for it?

It’s then that you think about Feferi. She used to go on and on about equality for all trolls and letting the disabled ones live. You thought she was crazy, but maybe she had something there. If it’ll save Karkat, you realize you don’t mind as much.

You suddenly want to go tell her your new revelation, but as soon as you think it, you choke.

Right, you’re not moirails any longer. You’re not anything any longer.

You go back to your hive in a decidedly worse mood.

.

You almost consider not going to visit him. In fact it’d probably be smart if you didn’t go. It’d probably be best if you both ignore each other forever now.

.

You go anyway, about a week later.

Your chest is healed, you’re in good shape, and by now you imagine he would have been able to catch up on all the sleep he wanted.

You can’t figure out what to wear, and end up trying on multiple different purple shirts and rejecting each one. Do you dress fancier? Show off your status because it makes you a more impressive potential mate? Or wear less because he probably couldn’t care less and he’s a small mutant landdweller who shouldn’t even be alive right now? You then think that technically he should feel privileged that you’re even showing any interest in him at all. Right, so you should wear all of your expensive things… except that will probably remind him that you just chained him up for days because you’re fucking royalty and he’s nothing.

You give up trying to figure out what to wear at all and in the end just put on the same clothes as you usually wear.

You practice another hundred conversations in your head as you pace around your hive, and none of them sound right. Anywhere from pleading - ‘Kar, I’m sorry for what happened, I pity you with all of my heart, please let me pail you,’ to ‘you should let me pail you, I’m a fuckin’ seadweller’. You shut the later train of thought down quickly. He’d try to slit you open again if you said that.

You just give up on that as well. Maybe you’ll go over there and let him do the talking, you don’t know. He’s good at talking, so perhaps he’ll just do it all for you. 

You ride your lusus to his hive and have him set you down on his lawnring, which is nestled among lawnrings of pathetic trolls just like him. You draw yourself up tall, fluff out your cape and go to knock on the door of his tiny little two story hive.

He answers it after a minute or so of you standing there. He glowers at you but he doesn’t draw a weapon or anything.

“Took you long enough,” he says grouchily. He throws the door wide. “Come in,” he says. You draw a deep breath and follow him into the hive. You gesture for your lusus to follow you so he’ll be inside instead of out in the open. You’ve been over a couple times already, so your lusus and his lusus are used to each other enough that they can be around each other without supervision. Sure enough as soon as they spot each other they kind of sniff at each other and then go their separate ways.

You follow Karkat down the hall.

You just hope this goes well, because right now so many things can go wrong and now you’re out of your element instead of him.

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	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.

.

You’re nervous as hell as he prepares you dinner. It’s not your type of food at all, hoofbeast meat and some sort of tuber type vegetable, but you eat it all anyway. You still don’t know what to say, you’re at a complete loss for words. What _do_ you say, really? Hi, how are you doing? Caught up on your sleep?

 He doesn’t speak either, which is just weird, he’s always upset and ranting about something or other. Instead he is focused on his food, eating slowly and carefully while you stare at him the entire time.

You can’t take it any longer. “Kar,” you say, putting down your utensils. “Why am I here?”

He looks up, a surprised expression on his face. That quickly turns into a frown. “I think you know why,” he says.

You frown back at him. “I thought I did, but you’re not even fuckin’ talking to me,” you say.

Instead of replying he ducks his head again. You watch as he puts down his utensils as well, then looks down at his lap and fidgets. “Fine,” he says. “You want me to talk, I’ll talk,” he swallows and visibly tenses before looking back at you, right in the eye. “You scare the shit out of me,” he says.

That’s not what you expected. “Well,” you reply, a bit at a loss for words. “That’s quite a thing a you to say.”

“I want you to pail me,” he adds.

You give him a confused look. “I scare you and you want me to pail you,” you repeat. At the same time your mind goes back to the conversation you had with him when he was high. Except he’s not high now, he looks perfectly lucid.

He’s glaring at you now. “I know why I’m still alive,” he snaps at you. “You want me. I get that,” he shoves away from the table, gets up and starts to pace. “Fuck, I had this entire thing planned out, I was going to have you over, make you some food,” he gestures violently to the table. “Sit you down to watch a movie and let you do whatever the hell you wanted to do to me.”

You school a flinch at his words. This is definitely not going how you thought it would. “Kar, I told you, if you don’t want…”

“WHAT DOES IT MATTER WHAT I WANT?!” he screams at you.

You just stare at him. “Kar?”

“I just, I just…” he’s nearly hyperventilating now and he turns back to you with a pleading expression on his face. “I know… I know I shouldn’t be here Eridan, you’re right, I am a freak, but I have feelings, I think and I breathe, I’m alive and I don’t,” he breaks, and his face crumples. “I don’t want to die,” he looks down at the ground, shoulders slumping. “I don’t want to kill you either, you don’t deserve it, you gave me how many chances. You’re a complete asshole douchebag and I don’t even know what the fuck you’re thinking with your stupid genocide project, but you let me fucking go, I can’t hurt you.”

Your head is reeling a bit. “You don’t have to hurt me,” you say finally, plaintively. “We’re friends, right?” At very least you have that. 

Something passes over his face before he shakes his head again. “I - shit. We can’t just be _friends_ either, Eridan. What happens if we fight? If you get mad at me for something? You can tell someone, you can tell _anyone_ about my blood color and my life is over. You let me go because you wanted me,” he looks up at you again. “I meant what I said. I’ll do anything to stay alive longer. Take me as a matesprit. Or a kismesis,” he adds after a slight hesitation. “Though that’d be stupid because you pity me, and I think I’d make a pretty shitty one besides.”

You blink at that. Kismesis wasn’t even something you had considered, you couldn’t possibly hate him for anything except his blood, and that he can’t help.

He’s right again, about all of it, because being in a quadrant will pretty much make sure you’ll never hurt him and visa versa. Even old quadrant mates you can’t really bring yourself to harm on any sort of permanent basis. Unless you go into a rage, Vriska is pretty damn safe from you. There’s too much familiarity there. And you’d _never_ hurt Feferi.

But… “Just to make sure I’m no threat to you, which I’m not, you want to be my matesprit. Even though you don’t want _me_ ,” the words sting even as you say them. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it Kar?”  

His jaw clenches. “I never said I didn’t want you.”

Your eyes widen at that. So… does that mean…? “You do want me?” you ask, and your voice is suspiciously high pitched.

He gives you a look like you’re dumb. “I wouldn’t have invited you here if I didn’t.” 

Your eyes narrow. “You just said I scare you,” you say. “That’s why you invited me here.”

His hands clench into fists. “I invited you here so we can pail,” he says with practically a snarl. “Now are you going to do it or not?” 

“I…” you trail off.

“Eridan,” he begins and there is a threatening tone to his voice.

“Wait, Kar, wait,” you say, pressing a hand to your forehead briefly. This is messed up. You should go… try to talk to him later because he’s obviously worked up. Then the thought hits you that if you leave, he might try to come after you again because a scared troll is a dangerous one and doesn’t that just put a damper on everything.

 _Fuck_.

You draw in a deep breath and then another. With the responses he gave you, you’re not _naive_ enough to think that he wants you for anything but his own silly piece of mind. It hurts badly to think it, but it’s probably true. It would be a one way matespritship, unless… you raise your head again. “Do you think, at any point in the future, you could want me the way I want you,” you ask quietly. It hurts you to say it, you feel open and raw as the words leave your mouth.

He bares his teeth at you. “I already told you…”

 “ _Kar_ ,” you interrupt gently.

 “I…” he tries to hang onto his angry expression but you give him a knowing look. Then his face falls and those wide expressive eyes meet your own. Tears well up in them. They’ll be red one day, those eyes, and the thought hits you with a pang. He’s still not going to make it all that much longer, he has maybe three sweeps until adulthood and someone’s going to notice those irises are quite a bit brighter than they should be. “Eridan, please,” his voice falls to a near whisper. “Please just do this.”

That’s not a yes. That isn’t even anywhere close to a yes. Your lips twist bitterly. “So for a bit of safety and security you’ll give away your quadrants, just like that?” that hurt to say too. This entire conversation hurts. You just want to go home right now and forget he ever even existed.

He looks devastated. After a moment his jaw tightens and he nods quickly. “Yes,” he says.

This is coming from the troll that put so much value into his romance movies and working out everyone else’s romantic problems and is pretty much an expert at them. Now you hurt _for_ him. “You shoulda just killed me when you had the chance,” you say bitterly. He could have slit your throat when you were asleep. He’d be free then, no worrying about you turning him in or quadrants he doesn’t want.

His eyes drop. “I couldn’t,” he replies quietly. “Not when you couldn't even fight back.”

Right, because he’s unable to kill something that’s not an outright threat to him, and you couldn’t even kill him even when he _was_ a threat… because you want him.

He doesn’t want you back, but you can take him anyway and he’ll let you. Until today you were fairly sure quadrants were supposed to be mutual.

This is beyond anything you ever wanted to deal with.

You’re looking at your choices now and they’re terrible. Possible death – _his_ possible death, because you’re not going to let him try to kill you _again_ – or being in a matespritship with him when he doesn’t even want to be there. Fucking great. Why does life constantly love to shit on you like this?

He just stands there and looks at you expectantly.

You draw a couple more breaths, then make your decision. It isn’t a hard one to make really, you want him alive, you’ll take him alive and you’ll keep him alive. “Right, fine, come on,” you say, deliberately making your voice as cold and unfeeling as possible. He gives you a surprised look as you walk over to him and pick him up. He goes tense but doesn’t fight as you carry him to out of the room to his sitting block.

You put him down abruptly on his couch and leer at him, leaning over him and bracing your hands on either side of his head. The end of your scarf falls between you.

His eyes are impossibly large as he stares up at you. “You asked for this,” you say with just a hint of sarcasm, before tilting your head and pressing your lips to his. 

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	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence in this chapter.

.

This is a really fucking bad idea. Bitterness makes you angry, anger makes you rough, even with him. You kiss him for a while, and he lets you, but he is so fucking passive, he doesn’t react at all really. You finally shove him back on the couch, pausing to peel off your cape, scarf and shirt, tossing them aside before pressing your hands against his torso and running them up the sides of his shirt.

He gasps and makes an abortive move to get away from you, and in turn you grab his shoulder and you shove him back down.

“Stay still,” you growl at him. He growls back in response, as any troll would, but after a moment that abates. You can see the way his eyes drop that he’s not going to challenge you.

That just pushes you more, angers you because now you _want_ a response out of him. Your claws catch in the fabric of his shirt and you tear it. You bite at his neck, leaving pin pricks of blood of the same color that caused this entire thing to happen in the first place. He whines at you now instead of growling, an apprehensive burst of sound in the back of his throat. You don’t stop. When your hands fall to the top of his pants the whine increases in volume, hitching with alarm. You ignore it as you grip the fabric and wrench it apart. It’s far less easy to tear pants, but you manage it somehow.

You’re going black, you know it before the thought can even creep into your mind and say so with any strength. You only have experience in the black quadrant, and your previous run ins with Vriska were particularly violent. She was unrelenting and cruel, a firestorm of pitch that nearly suffocated you and yet left you immensely satisfied at the end. Too bad that only lasted a couple pedigrees…

You grin at the memory and that must have freaked him out or something because he starts to struggle against you. A foot lodges against your abdomen and he tries to push you back. You grab his ankle and jerk it out of the way and slap him, hard.

He shouts something and hits you back, open handed, a strike not meant to hurt but to get your attention. You’re rapidly losing your ability to care. You sneer and clamp a hand around his throat and push him back down. That just makes his struggling worse.

He’s not fucking cooperating and your mind is beginning to become foggy with anger and building rage. This is not going well at all, you’re going to end up hurting him badly if you don’t stop…

You have to calm down. Let him go, try again later. You hesitate, just for a second, and shake your head slightly to clear it.

A foot connects with your jaw. Stunned, you reel back as he finally manages to shove you off and makes a break for it.

You stare after him in confusion until you realize something very important.

He’s running away from you. He’s not armed but he could be, he’s probably going for his weapons right now…

Something just breaks inside your head.

You catch him with in just a couple strides, tackle him to the floor. You both land hard but you have the definite advantage in size and strength. You twist him around, straddling him with his hands held tightly in your fists. You dig in your claws in until he’s gasping from the pain.

“You wanted this,” you snarl at him.

 “Not like this!” he yells back at you. He struggles again with renewed vigor, his eyes tightly shut as he thrashes this way and that. Your glasses get knocked off, which just serves as fuel to your anger. You shove a knee into his stomach to make him stop moving. He does, his mouth twisting downwards in pain.

“I thought you said this was the only way it could be done,” you say with another hiss. “Since being _friends_ isn’t good enough for you.”

He’s breathing is quick and heavy, eyes still tightly closed. He draws in a couple shuddering breaths. “That’s not - ! it’s just -” he trails off. “Slow down,” he begs finally. “Fuck, Eridan, I’ve never done this before— _AH_ ,” he cries out as you climb off of him and go back to divesting him of his pants. He wraps his newly freed arms around his torso, whimpering again and shaking violently as you finish yanking them off. You’re growling, a low threatening sound, which only increases when he instinctively tries to roll away from you and cover himself. He whines when you grab his arm and throw him back with little care of whether it hurts him or not.

You follow it up with a backhand and he slams up against the front of the couch. He slumps to the floor, stunned. You’re panting with exertion and now you’re vaguely aware of the fact that you no longer want to fuck him, you’re pissed, you want to make him suffer. It doesn’t occur to you that he’s not really fighting back, he’s definitely not fighting dirty or trying to bite you, he’s only defending himself. Everything he does right now feels like an outright attack.

You grab him by the hair and yank him up and back against the couch. You kneel above him, one hand outstretched, claws ready to strike.

He lets out a whimpered cry and looks up at you, his eyes meeting your own. You can see the fear in them, but also something else you can’t quite place…

His eyes widen and he suddenly goes completely limp.

That… wasn’t what you expected, you expected him to fight him more and you freeze, hand still extended and ready to tear into him. You’re  waiting for him to make the next move to get away. If he so much as twitches he’s getting a face full of claws.

“Shit,” he says instead, and it’s more a breathy moan under his breath. “Your eyes,” he adds. That confuses you, what about your eyes? Your confusion is enough that when he reaches for you - very slowly, his hand is shaking - you don’t hit him for it.

You still have him by the hair but that doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he’s reaching for you at all is so unexpected that you remain still as his hand reaches your face.

Trembling fingers slide over your cheek. He pats at you.

What?

The fearful look on his face fades into a determined one. He shifts and his other hand comes up, pressing to the center of your chest and begins to pat you there as well. “Shhh…” he says.

You can’t move, or rather you really don’t _want_ to move.

You become aware of things slowly, like the fact that you’re growling low in your throat, a warning sound that should tell every troll in the close vicinity to back the fuck off now or they’re going to start losing body parts. Where you were only vaguely aware of things only seconds ago, your thoughts start to focus, becoming sharper, clearer. The growl abates, then stops altogether. You blink, and then blink again, your brow furrowing. Your lower your striking hand, and even more slowly you uncurl your fingers from where it is gripping his hair.

He relaxes, and you can see the relief on his face from being let go. He continues with the patting and shushing, never even pausing for a second. 

“What..?” you start to say, confused. You run your thumb over your fingers and the black strands of his hair fall from them. You stare at your hand, appalled, and then look back at him.

He just shakes his head, then leans forwards until he’s nestled up against you, head on your shoulder. He kisses your neck, just a very soft barely there kiss, and his hand continues to pat your cheek. You’re beyond confused. You have no idea what is going on anymore. “K-kar?” you question, and there is a slight tremble to your voice.

“You don’t have a moirail,” he says quietly after a moment.

“I _know_ I don’t have a fucking moirail,” you snap back at him. You haven’t talked to Feferi in two weeks, ever since she said she can’t handle your depressing bullshit any longer. That was why he was visiting you in the first place, and how your first fight happened, when he agreed with her and said you were fucking impossible and had serious issues and…

Oh.

Oh fuck.

_Oh fuck you just lost it and…_

You shove him back suddenly so his back is pressed against the couch again and kneel beside him. You can see just fine up close without your glasses and you start desperately examining him for damage. You grip his jaw, turning it this way and that. Red cheek, swollen, black eye for sure, given time. Several bites to the neck, one that is still bleeding sluggishly. Shallow marks along one of his sides and down his chest from where you tore off his shirt, and both his wrists are bleeding from where you dug your claws in. That looks to be the extent of the damages. He’s not breathing like something is cracked or broken…

Your eyes meet his. He looks wary but not scared, thankfully. You gather him up in your arms and let out a choked sound as you press your face to his shoulder.

He sighs as he carefully hugs you back. “Eridan…” he begins.

You shake your head but don’t raise it. “I just – I just… I’m sorry, Kar. I didn’t mean to lose it, you started fightin’ me and something snapped, I’d never want to hurt you, I swear it,” you’re half babbling into his shoulder.

“Shhhh,” he goes back to patting you, this time on your arm. He doesn’t reply beyond shushing you for a long while, though he does snuggle closer against you. “I did this,” he says finally, and he sounds miserable.

“Naw, you didn’t do anythin’ Kar, you don’t want me as a matesprit - ” fuck that hurts “- I was angry with you, I admit it, I shoulda calmed down a bit before… before we…” you choke up. “I don’t want this,” you admit after you’ve gotten control of your voice. “I mean I do, but not like this, not like…” you trail off. There’s no point in you repeating that you don’t want a troll that has no interest in you except to use you to strategically cover his ass. He gave you that ultimatum after all. You tense, claws digging into his back, a bit despite yourself, but not hard enough to pierce skin. “But we have to do it, I know that. You said we got to…” 

He flinches and it’s not because of your claws. He’s silent.

“You could tie me up?” you say hopefully.

He deflates and lets out an exasperated sigh. “I do that and you’re going to flip your shit even harder,” he replies.

He’s right, you probably will. Being tied up is a big issue for any highblood troll. Probably lowblood trolls as well and you force back guilt from the fact that you had him in chains for two days.

He lets out another small sigh and shifts, letting you go. “Just… look, go slowly alright?” he says as he begins to pull away. You watch with dawning horror as he makes to lie back on the floor. 

 _No._ You grab him and jerk him back up and wrap your arms around him. You hug him and don’t let go and you’re practically fucking clinging now. “Do we havta Kar? Do we? Can we just do this instead? I like this,” you say plaintively.

He is still in your arms. “I have a moirail,” he says.

You bite your tongue on mentioning that he just cheated on him pretty damn badly. It was an emergency after all, he did what he had to do to break through to you before you actually managed to hurt him badly or kill him.

“We don’t gotta talk or anythin’,” you say. “Just do this stuff with the holdin’,” you add. “Matesprits do this too,” you say.

He begins to squirm. “Eridan, we can’t just…”

“Please,” you beg. You let him go because the thought of him struggling to get away from you again absolutely fucking breaks you. “Please,” you say again miserably as you look down at your lap. You’re shaken and well beyond your ability to cope or care that you’re begging.

You just want to be held, you realize. Held, loved in some sort of way, appreciated even a little bit. You’re fucking royalty but it doesn’t matter if you’re so fucking lonely and no one gives a shit about you at all. Feferi doesn’t. Vriska doesn’t either. Karkat could gut you right now and who would care? Really?

You feel your eyes welling with tears despite yourself and keep your eyes trained on your lap. You haven’t cried yet, you don’t want to start now, but your tears seem to have a different agenda. Fuck. You curl in on yourself a little bit more, listening as he shifts around.

You hear him let out another exasperated sigh. “Eridan are you…?” he begins. He trails off as you swipe angrily at your face. “Oh fuck,” he breathes.

“Leave me alone,” you mutter, and swipe at your face again.

Instead his hand reaches out for you. Gently he tilts your head up so he can see you. You try not to look at him, which doesn’t succeed very well. He brushes tear from the corner of one of your eyes with a thumb.

Just him doing that hurts you, all his false caring. You try to pull your head back but he just tightens his grip on your chin.

“Kar,” you try. “Stop…”

Your eyes widen and you jump when he leans down and presses a kiss to your cheek. “Kar!” you exclaim as you succeed in pulling back. Your throat swells and your eyes well up more, it’s not fair, none of this is fair, he shouldn’t be doing this to you…

You turn away, but not before catching the particular expression on his face. You really can’t place it, at least not while swimming in your own mental anguish. He scoots closer and takes your face in both his hands and forces you to look at him again. Your eyes shift, you don’t want to look at him directly, because there are tears in your eyes and on your cheeks and that’s humiliating.

He can wreck you right now, without even much effort, with a few callused words. You’ll just go back to your hive… and never come out again. Give up on romance permanently. Become a fucking hermit. Fuck everything.

He stares at you, his brow wrinkling. He looks almost puzzled in a way.

“What is it?” you want to get away from him and silently plead with him to just let you go.

Something akin to dawning realization comes over his face and the corner of his mouth quirks up. “You’re really fucking pitiful, you know that?” he says.

You just stare at him in reply. He doesn’t laugh or anything, if anything he looks thoughtful and definitely serious.

The hope that wells up inside of you is nearly overwhelming. “You… you mean that?” you stutter out. At the same time you’re a little bit confused and more than a little bit ashamed that you had to have an embarrassing emotional moment to make him decide to suddenly pity you.

Instead of answering you he leans forwards and kisses you again but on the lips this time, softly, gently, like you’re in one of his romance movies and he actually means it.

You don’t know if he actually means it though, but you’re too broken and tired right now to question this any longer. After a brief hesitation you tentatively kiss him back.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now art for this chapter here: [Eridan attacking Karkat](http://spacefille.tumblr.com/post/50978284020).


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait everyone, I got a bit stuck. This might not flow as well as the rest of the fic as there was a three month writing gap.

.

When you break away, you study his face, looking for something - anything really - that will prove he means it, that he pities you in return.

Instead, Karkat has a determined look on his face, jaw set, and you have a sinking feeling in your chest that you're just back where you started. This affection is just a lie, a farce, and it's one he is going to carry out to completion, no matter what. He won't let you go until he's done what he wants with you.

He leans forward to kiss you again and you shut your eyes. His kisses are gentle, and he spreads them over your face, fins, tip of your chin. He nudges your neck with his nose, which you bare for him. The thought crosses your mind that he could sink his teeth in, tear your throat out, but you're beyond exhausted and all the fight has left you.

Another kiss is pressed to your neck, light and harmless, and he moves, slipping down the length of your body. A kiss falls on your shoulder, then the tip of one of your gills. His hands move down your sides, over the tops of your gills, a soft touch, not threatening. Your throat swells with the tenderness of it.

“Kar..,” you begin as another kiss is pressed to your stomach, but you trail off. This isn't real, you remind yourself bitterly, but you don't fight it. He'll get what he wants out of you, and you realize that with the after effects of being calmed by a moirail you don't have any fight in you left to protest. He didn't even have to tie you up, he has so completely reduced your defenses to nothing.

You obediently raise your hips when he tugs at your pants, slipping them down far enough to gain access to your bulge and nook. Another kiss is pressed to your hip, then the inside of your thigh. Your eyes burn and you shut them, unable to stop liquid from leaking from them as his mouth finally falls against the slit of your nook.

You tense up despite yourself, and he feels it. A hand comes up, drawing soothing circles into the skin of your chest, even as he busies himself with his tongue. He's shooshing you as he works, you didn't even know it was possible to mix red with pale this much…

A moan escapes your lips as he slips his tongue inside of you and moves it back and forth, mimicking the actions of a bulge. The warm wetness of it is wrong and yet ridiculously good. You're gasping and your bulge has slipped out, mindlessly drawing a slick trail over the side of his face. You pant and let out a few nonsensical words, bring down a hand to pat at the top of his head. “Please,” you manage to get out. You know what you're begging for and you hate yourself for it.

He gets the message. You can't look at him, you don't want to see the expression on his face, the look from the troll that doesn't want you is about to pail you anyway. Instead you focus on the side of the couch as he lifts himself up to drape himself over you. You’re practically dripping, and momentarily shame washes over you even as you feel his almost uncomfortably warm budge squirm against your nook. A moment later it slips inside. You gasp again at the sensation and rear up, your nook squeezing at him eagerly, pulling him in deeper. He grunts but doesn't pull away; instead he lays down against your chest, head against your shoulders as his hips slide along your own.

You just want to be inside of him. You still don't look at him as you ask.

“Kar... can I…?”

He nods yes against your shoulder. You bring your hands up and touch his sides, holding him steady for a moment as your bulge seeks out his nook and begins to work inside.

It's hot and tight and not all of your bulge fits. He lets out an odd cut off whimper and suddenly you're afraid you've hurt him, but instead of letting you pull back he clamps down. Your bulge is pulled further in. He waits a moment to adjust then starts to move again with earnest. You're lost, your hands falling uselessly to your sides.

His motions quicken and he pulls away from you to reach up and grab your shoulders. His claws dig in and you welcome the sharp pin pricks of pain. You wonder at that. Will he tear you open now? You don't even think you could raise a finger to fight him off right now if he did decide to get violent.

But he doesn't, he doesn't tear you, instead he readjusts and braces himself with his hands on the floor. He moves faster, grinding hard against you, his bulge trying to get deeper within you. It's almost too much pressure, more than you can handle and before you're able to utter a word you're releasing into him. He stills, but only for a moment before he's moving again, muttering curses under his breath until he lets out a low small groan and comes himself, filling you up in return.

It’s uncomfortable, the feel of genetic fluid inside of you, but not unbearable. You lie still, focused on staring at the couch upholstery, as he fights to catch his breath and finally collapses on top of you.

After a moment his hand comes up, trembling and slightly damp, to touch your cheek and try to turn your head to look at him.

You resist. You really don't want to look at him right now. “Don't,” you say and shut your eyes.

He lets out a small bark of laughter that comes across as more pained than mirthful but at least he stops trying to get you to look at him. Instead he lets go and places his forehead against your shoulder again. “Fuck me to last perigee eve,” he mutters. His voice is strained and miserable as he continues. “What the fuck have I done?”

Exactly what you wanted, you think, but you don't speak. The sadness you feel is near overwhelming. You still don't want to look at him but the urge to reassure him comes over you and won't leave you be. He's your _matesprit_ ; you should take care of him. You bring your arms up to hold him to yourself, then stroke his bangs back from his forehead and thumb his sweaty cheek.

No matter how he feels... no matter how _you_ feel, it is done. He is yours and you are his, though probably more of the latter. He has nothing to fear from you. You are more relaxed than you have ever felt in your life, every hint of anger pushed back by unnatural calm. You stroke his back, rubbing reassuring circles with your hand.

He resists for a few moments, then relaxes as well. It takes a while but you keep petting him until soft sounds of contentment well up from his throat.

Your motions still and finally stop. You doze. You are fairly fucking certain you actually fall asleep for a while and when you wake up again he is squirming slightly, like he wants to get up.

You sigh and move, gently pushing him off of yourself. You get up, winching at the pressure of genetic fluid within you. You force yourself to keep going anyway, finding your glasses as well as hiking your pants back into place. Once you have them on you make your way to the kitchen, go through the cupboards until you find a bowl that you fill with water. You swipe a cloth from the sink, place it in the bowl and make your way back to the living room.

He's sitting on the couch again, still bare and streaked with blood, looking exhausted. You walk over to him and put down the bowl and start to clean him, much like you did the day you had him in chains. He lets you silently, and you move him carefully to get at his wounds.

The water turns a dull red with his mutant blood as you wring out the cloth. He sighs once you're done. He's got his hands clasped together in his lap and is studying them intently.

“Everything good now, Kar?” you ask.

He shrugs.

“You got what you wanted,” you point out. His head jerks up and he stares at you. You manage a pained smile in return and reach out for him. He flinches very slightly, but doesn't move as you place your fingers around one of his horns. You carefully rub your thumb against it in an obvious gesture of affection and after a moment he leans into it. “I never wanted to cull you,” you say a bit forlornly. “... You just never believed me.”

The silence between you is heavy. A couple seconds later you make a hand gesture to his multiple injuries. “I'm sorry I lost it, I didn't wanna hurt you either, I swear it.”

He looks like he is in pain. He opens his mouth to reply but nothing comes out and after a moment he closes it again and looks away.

You drop your hand and heave a sigh. “I'm goin' back to my hive,” you say with all the dignity you can muster, which isn't much.

He nods again and doesn't look at you as you gather up your things to leave.

.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: This was going to be the second last part; however the epilogue containing a summary of their further adventures was getting way too long. I decided I will just expand it and post it as a new different story. I will link it to this one as a series when/if I write it. 
> 
> As for now, this is the end of Choices, thank you for reading!

.

You’re a seadweller and you finally have a matesprit. Funny how your quest to make Feferi yours turned into this entire fucked up situation in the first place.

He doesn’t even fucking talk to you anymore. He’s still alive and you’re sure thankful for that. You know he’s alive because he logs into Trollian every night. The red light that tells you he’s online soothes you in ways that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. But he never messages you. Not once. And that troll used to message you all the time, in giant walls of grey caps, but now… nothing.

The thrall, or whatever it was you felt from being good and properly shooshed wore off pretty quick once you got back to your hive. You slept like the dead for a day and almost another night, before you managed to haul your carcass back out of the sopor, feeling a lot more like yourself.

You don’t know how you feel about the events back at Kar’s place. You’re upset, you never wanted to be in this situation, you pity him terribly and you still do, but a resigned voice in the back of your head tells you that it’s useless. You wonder how your relationship will carry out now. The liquid you released into the bucket when you got back to your hive was a murky reddish purple that you suppose wouldn’t look much different if another royal blooded troll pailed a rust. Nothing that would incriminate him or you, except to say you’re a horrible pervert for pailing on the opposite end of the hemospectrum.

But with him not talking to you… you will probably be in a long distance matespritship then, and maybe meet once a sweep for pailing, never really being together or holding each other like proper matesprits should. The once a sweep pailing might work for a little while, until you both hit full adulthood and his eye color comes in and someone that isn’t you sticks a culling fork in his chest.

You groan and sit on your couch in your living room and put your head in your hands. You’re perfectly aware you’ve just been bought off for the maybe three extra sweeps he’ll get out of life. He’ll be careful now, probably won’t ever let any of his other friends near him, he can’t do to them what he did to you, not with you as a matesprit already.

The dark thought crosses your mind that maybe he’d do just that, with everyone in turn, until he has a dozen matesprits. You push that thought back as quickly as it came. With how much fighting and hurting you just went though, you don’t think he’ll be trying anything of the sort with any other of his friends.

You can only hope.

.

You were never really into anything but quick kills, the thrill of conquest and winning the game interests you more than how your victims die. Even so you notice you now are enjoying killing far more than you used to. The pickings are scarce out at sea, every lusus that used to live near either you or Fef has long since been wiped out. You hunt further inland, surprising small trolls, killing their guardians to drag the white corpses back out to sea. Some of those trolls are only half your size, and you shoot them as well. Some of the bigger ones fight back and oh, you enjoy that, an opportunity to prove how much better you are at fighting. The fights are quick and brutal and you are always victorious. The ones that don’t fight you just do away with, at point blank range the size of the hole in their chests ensure they’ll never get up again.

One of them begs you to spare him, a brown with wide wet eyes and messy black hair around smallish horn. You’ve already broken into his home and have shot his rather pitiful sized lusus. You have him backed up against his stairs and he pleads with you to let him live. “I’ll do anything,” he says as he looks up at you with his wide eyes. He can’t be more than a sweep younger than you. “P-please. I’ll be your s-slave if you want, anything…”

His words are familiar and horrifying. Something inside you just snaps and you snarl at him as you plunge your fist into his abdomen. He gurgles and chokes as you rip a handful of guts out and go in with your other hand to continue the damage.

When you come back to yourself there is brown dripping down from the ceiling and you are covered from head to toe with blood and gore.

Even your lusus wickers nervously at you from outside the door. You take a deep breath, and then another, and suddenly feel sick.

The brown you just killed… he just wanted to live, and you’re not playing a game right now. Fuck, what are you even doing? You shake your head slightly in attempts to clear it. If he hadn’t sounded so much like Karkat had… 

You have to take another look at the other troll’s face, at his dull unseeing eyes and reassure yourself that he isn’t really Karkat. You detour to the sink to wash off your hands before you storm back out of the hive. You ignore the dead body of the lusus that you came here for and instead mount your own. “Take me to Karkat,” you grumble. You’re done hunting for now. You have a fucking matesprit, who likes to act like a moirail when you’re pissed, and right now you need him.

.

You don’t even bother knocking when you get to his hive. Instead you shove open the door and waltz inside. Karkat is in his living block, or at least he was, he meets you in the hall and you hear the sound of his entertainment system still on in the background.

“Eridan?!” he exclaims, clearly shocked to see you.

You walk towards him with determined steps, and you see the way his hand falls to his weapon at his hip before rising again. He doesn’t take the sickle out but he does get into a defensive crouch. “Eridan, what the fuck happened to you… is that blood? Why are you covered with… oh fuck is that _TROLL_ blood?”

You cut his mini freakout short by picking him up and holding him against you. He squishes kind of, you really did do a number on that brown. You stick your nose in his hair, right between his horns. He’s warm and stiff as a board in your arms. After a moment he seems to realize you’re not attacking him and instead starts to squirm.

“What the fuck, gross, you’re getting it all over me! Stop it you homicidal pan case, put me down-” you ignore his protests and carry him into his living block. He starts to fight you, hard, and you nip at his ear.

“Stop movin’ so much, Kar,” you order. He goes stiff and still.

Of course he does, you can’t help a bit of a bitter smile at that. You still don’t do anything but hold him. After a moment you sit and rearrange him so he’s in your lap. You continue to nose his hair, sniffing, your bitter smile turning into a much more content one. This is your matesprit and you feel calmer already.

He relaxes by degrees and finally lets out a small sigh himself, moving so he is more comfortably seated in your lap. His clothing is outrageously messed, and brown as well, you’ve probably been getting brown all over his hive.

“What happened?” he asked. He still looks wary.

You push his bangs back and press a kiss to his forehead. “I wanted to be with you.”

He is silent for a long moment and then shifts, reaching for a remote you nearly knocked off the couch and switching off the TV. “You want to talk about it,” he says with a little nod, like he’s figured it all out. “Mind telling me who the hell you killed?”

You shrug. “No one important, Kar,” you reply. “And no,” you don’t particularly want a feelings jam, or to be told what a selfish troll you are, how you have rage issues like you don’t already fucking know that, how you’re a highblood and crazy and likely to snap and disembowel any troll that so much as looks at you weird, even if it’s partly true. “I just want to be with you.”

He raises his hand at it looks like it’s heading towards your cheek. You jerk your head away. “Don’t you dare shoosh me,” you say.

He lets out a small surprised sound, then smiles and it looks genuine. “I’m not,” he replies and reaches out again. This time his hand smoothes over the side of your cheek. When he pulls it back again it has brown blood on it and he gives it a mildly distasteful look. “Maybe you could come be with me before you kill some poor hapless troll that probably didn’t do anything to deserve what you just did to them.”

You shrug. “He reminded me of you,” you reply.

He goes absolutely still, even stops breathing for a moment, and you back pedal quickly. “He reminded me that I wanted to be with you, what do you take me for?” You’re hurt despite yourself, even if it’s half a lie.

He gives you a long look and you interrupt it by leaning down and kissing him on the lips. When you pull away you frown at him, which deepens when you see you left a little bit of brown on his lips. You dash it away with a finger. “Why don’t you message me or anything?” you ask, and the hurt is easy to hear in your voice. “It’s been weeks.”

He drops his gaze and shifts uncomfortably, then finally gets up and crawls off of you. “Kar?” you ask as he settles onto the couch beside you.

He begins to do that thing where he curls up into a ball, his arms around his legs. You stare. What have you done now? Well, besides bursting into his hive covered in blood and wanting a cuddle. “What is it?” you ask, fearfully. You only now notice, now that your relief at seeing him is done, how tired he looks. There are near black smudges under his eyes and he looks sweeps older than he actually is. Also, if you weren’t mistaken, he was lighter to pick up than he was before. You reach out to touch his shoulder and he flinches, which makes you feel worse.

“Wha – Kar, don’t do this, please, you know you’re safe I told you already, I’m sorry for kickin’ down your door just then, that was very rude a me I admit, I –“

 “STOP,” he bursts out. He gives you this incredibly exasperated look. “Just stop.”

You do, and drop your hand into your lap.

He draws a deep breath, and then another. “Look, I'm sorry,” he says.

That takes you aback. “For what, Kar?” your throat swells. He better not be fucking breaking  up with you, not already… but as soon as you think it, you realize that might just be what is going on here. You still won’t hurt him, he must know he’s safe as an ex now that you’ve shared your one pathetic moment of intimacy.

He looks like he's in pain and throws his hands wide as he turns on you. “For using you, I'm so fucking sorry. I am officially the shittest troll that ever existed,” he draws a quick breath and presses on before you can say anything. “I'd offer to suck your bulge, but that's what got us in this fucked up situation in the first place so instead I’m going to throw myself prostrate in front of you and beg your fucking forgiveness even though I don’t deserve it.” He actually moves to put himself on the floor before your brain catches up with his words and you grab his arm.

He stops moving. You stare at him and he stares at you. Finally, you let him go again and attempt to smile, though you’re pretty sure that comes across as more of a grimace than anything pleasant. “It's nothin' Kar.” you say. “It worked didn't it? We're both alive and I still don't wanna kill you, I promise.”

He gives you this very sad look. “I know,” he replies. “I think I always knew but I’m stupid, okay?” he goes back to that curled up thing. “So yeah, I’ve fucked up everything forever and I didn’t even have the guts to talk to you about it,” he lets out a snort of self deprecating laughter and tucks his chin in further. “Maybe you should have just culled me when you had the chance,” he mutters.

“That’s a stupid thing a you to stay,” you tell him primly. “After everything we’ve been though. You don’t wanna die and I don’t either. Besides, you’re my _matesprit_ ,” you add. No one is getting culled here. Ever.

“Because I gave you no other choice,” he replies. His arm muffles the words.

“Well, I do admit that was a fine bit of manipulation you did there,” you reply. “I knew you were using my feelin’s for you against me from the start. I’m not dumb, Kar,” this doesn’t seem to be making him feel much better because his face is all screwed up.

“You can break up with me, if you want,” you say. That hurts, but surprisingly not as much as you thought it would even a couple minutes before now. “But if you don’t, I’ll be the finest flippin’ matesprit you’ve ever seen,” you reach out and run a hand along his warm shoulder blade and he doesn’t pull away this time. “I’d take you with me you know. When we have ta leave. I’m fuckin’ royalty, I can take a sl- a servant before I come of age,” he finally turns his head and looks at you, and his eyes are wide and a bit unbelieving. “You were right I guess,” you say, though you’re loath to admit it. “You need a way off this planet that doesn’t involve a cullin’ fork and I’m about the only troll that can do that, outside the Condesce herself a course.”

His mouth twists and he looks away again. “If I make it, and this is a very big IF… you’ll be promoted to the head of the navy, I’ll be cleaning your load gapper. Tell me if that’s an existence that’s really worth living.”

“I think you’ve proven that any existence is worth livin’ Kar,” you reply. You’re sick of this conversation already and it feels strange to be having it after so recently depriving another troll of life. He’s really fucking lucky you pity him so much.

He shrugs again and you heave an irritated sigh before reaching out and grasp his chin. You forcibly tilt his head towards your own. “You’ve gotta trust me,” you say. “Isn’t that what you said back on my ship? I trusted you and let you go and you flipped your shit. I guess I kinda did to. But now, you just gotta trust me,” his eyes search yours and you hold his gaze in order to convey the most amount of sincerity ever. “I’ll keep you hidden if I have to. I’ll teach you to fight better with those things,” you make a head motion to his sickles. “Come with me, Kar. You won’t be cleaning nothing, you’ll be my _queen_.”

His jaw actually drops and then he hits you in the arm. There isn’t any sort of strength behind it, it’s not meant to hurt. “That was really fucking lame,” he says.

“It’s true,” you reply with a pout.

“Fuck you, you’re the damn queen asshole.” He’s laughing now, his eyes lighting up with genuine delight and you can’t remember the last time you saw that. “You are so fucking full of hoofbeast shit,” he wraps his arms around your neck and moves in close, eyes still focused on you. “Fine, fuck you, we’ll do this your way,” he says and kisses you.

You pull away with a smirk. “About fuckin’ time,” you reply. The relief you feel is overwhelming. He grins and kisses you again like he means it, and maybe, just maybe, this time he does.

.


End file.
